Commentary – The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary
and Joseph Year C
December 27, 2015
First Reading – 1 Samuel 1.20-22, 24-28
In those days Hannah conceived, and at the end of her
term bore a son
whom she called Samuel, since she had asked the LORD for
him.
The next time her husband Elkanah was going up
with the rest of his household
to offer the customary sacrifice to the LORD and to
fulfill his vows,
Hannah did not go, explaining to her husband,
“Once the child is weaned,
I will take him to appear before the LORD
and to remain there forever;
I will offer him as a perpetual nazirite.”
Once Samuel was weaned, Hannah brought him up with her,
along with a three-year-old bull,
an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine,
and presented him at the temple of the LORD in Shiloh.
After the boy’s father had sacrificed the young bull,
Hannah, his mother, approached Eli and said:
“Pardon, my lord!
As you live, my lord,
I am the woman who stood near you here, praying to the
LORD.
I prayed for this child, and the LORD granted my
request.
Now I, in turn, give him to the LORD;
as long as he lives, he shall be dedicated to the LORD.”
Commentary
SAMUEL, THE MIRACLE CHILD
Samuel is a miracle child! This
text is from a historical period in Israel that we unfortunately infrequently
hear about. So here is a brief recap: we are at the end of the period of
Judges. There is yet no king to rule over the people. After Moses had died and
the Israelites had entered the Promised Land, around 1200 BC, the tribes had
progressively taken over the territories on which they settled. This lasted
approximately one hundred and fifty years. During this time, leaders called
“Judges” governed the tribes; they served as warlords as well as political and
religious leaders, and they settled disputes.
One more point on this historical
period: since no king yet ruled over the people there was no Jerusalem and no
temple. The Ark of the Covenant that had accompanied the people throughout the
Exodus journey was kept in a sanctuary in Shiloh situated in the middle of
Palestine, thirty kilometers (18.5 miles) north of the future Jerusalem. A
priest by the name of Eli was in charge of this sanctuary; and because it
housed the Ark of the Covenant, Shiloh had become a pilgrimage site.
Now there was a man by the name
of Elkanah who lived nearby; he had two wives, Hannah and Peninnah. Hannah was
the favored of the two, but she was barren. Her rival Peninnah, on the other
hand, had children of whom she was very proud; she never missed an opportunity
to insinuate to Hannah that her barrenness was a punishment from God. The most
difficult time for Hannah was the yearly pilgrimage to Shiloh when both wives
accompanied Elkanah. Everyone could see Hannah’s distress compared to
Peninnah’s happy glow. Hannah’s childlessness weighed all the more heavily on
her on these occasions, and in her grief and humiliation she could only weep
and repeatedly mutter her prayer to God, a prayer that probably went like this:
“O Lord, I beg of you, please give me children.” She silently prayed on and on,
and she was a sight for sore eyes, so much so that Eli, the guardian of the
sanctuary took her to task, thinking that she was in a drunken stupor.
It is at this point that the miracle happens; for God knows our deepest desires. God saw
Hannah’s tears and heard her prayer, and a few months later she bore a son whom
she named Samuel, because one possible meaning of this name is, “God hears, God
grants”. In her grief Hannah had made a vow: “O LORD of hosts, if you look with pity on
the hardship of your servant, if you remember me and do not forget me, if you
give your handmaid a male child, I will give him to the LORD
all the days of his life” (1 Samuel 1.11). Today’s reading narrates the fulfillment of this
vow. As soon as the child is weaned,
which in those days was around three years of age, Hannah brings him to the
sanctuary in Shiloh and hands him over to Eli the priest, saying, “I am the woman who stood near you
here, praying to the LORD. I prayed for this child, and the
LORD granted my request. Now I, in turn, give him to the
LORD; as
long as he lives, he shall be dedicated to the LORD.”
So Samuel grew up in Shiloh, and it is here that he heard God calling him. He
later became a great servant of Israel.
HE SHALL BE DEDICATED TO THE LORD
We may wonder
why this text was chosen for the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and
Joseph. What connection is there between these two children, Jesus and Samuel,
between these two mothers, Mary and Hannah, and these two fathers, Joseph and
Elkanah? More than a thousand years separates these two stories.
We can find
three reasons: first, God hears; the name Samuel means, “God hears, God
grants.” That the poor and the downtrodden take centre stage in God’s eyes is
Israel’s fundamental religious experience. Hannah had cried out to God when she
was in the depths of humiliation and she was heard. Reread Hannah’s canticle
after the birth of Samuel, for example, and you will see how much it resembles
the Magnificat that sprang from the lips of a humble young girl from the
miserable little village of Nazareth.
Secondly, it is
through human history, through real families that God accomplishes God’s plan.
This is the mystery of the Incarnation, patiently worked out through the ages.
Thirdly, both
stories have miraculous births: Jesus is born of a virgin through the power of
the Holy Spirit, and barren Hannah gives birth to a child…. And if we dig a
little deeper, we find in the Bible a long list of miraculous births: Isaac,
Samson, Samuel, John the Baptist, Jesus. In the case of Isaac, Sarah was most
beloved by Abraham, yet she too was barren and humiliated by her more blessed
rival, Hagar, Ishmael’s mother. And God had taken pity on Sarah: she conceived
a son, Isaac.
All these
miraculous births are vivid reminders for us, reminders that every child is a
gift from God. It suffices to have been a parent, even if only once, to know
that we do not give life, we transmit it, for life is not something we own. God
is the giver of life, and whether bodily or spiritually, we have the honor of
making ourselves available to God, of lending our bodies, our lives for God’s
plan.
Responsorial Psalm – 84.2-3, 5-6, 9-10
R/Blessed are they who dwell in your house, O Lord.
How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts!
My soul yearns and pines for the courts of the LORD.
My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
R/Blessed are they who dwell in your house, O Lord.
Happy they who dwell in your house!
Continually they praise you.
Happy the men whose strength you are!
Their hearts are set upon the pilgrimage.
R/Blessed are they who dwell in your house, O Lord.
O LORD of hosts, hear our prayer;
hearken, O God of Jacob!
O God, behold our shield,
and look upon the face of your anointed.
R/Blessed are they who dwell in your house, O Lord.
Second Reading – 1 John 3.1-2, 21-24
Beloved:
See what love the Father has bestowed on us
that we may be called the children of God.
And so we are.
The reason the world does not know us
is that it did not know him.
Beloved, we are God’s children now;
what we shall be has not yet been revealed.
We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like
him,
for we shall see him as he is.
Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us,
we have confidence in God and receive from him whatever
we ask,
because we keep his commandments and do what pleases
him.
And his commandment is this:
we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ,
and love one another just as he commanded us.
Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in
them,
and the way we know that he remains in us
is from the Spirit he gave us.
Gospel – Luke 2.41-52
Each year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the feast
of Passover,
and when he was twelve years old,
they went up according to festival custom.
After they had completed its days, as they were
returning,
the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem,
but his parents did not know it.
Thinking that he was in the caravan,
they journeyed for a day
and looked for him among their relatives and
acquaintances,
but not finding him,
they returned to Jerusalem to look for him.
After three days they found him in the temple,
sitting in the midst of the teachers,
listening to them and asking them questions,
and all who heard him were astounded
at his understanding and his answers.
When his parents saw him,
they were astonished,
and his mother said to him,
“Son, why have you done this to us?
Your father and I have been looking for you with great
anxiety.”
And he said to them,
“Why were you looking for me?
Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
But they did not understand what he said to them.
He went down with them and came to Nazareth,
and was obedient to them;
and his mother kept all these things in her heart.
And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor
before God and man.
Commentary
JESUS IN THE TEMPLE OF JERUSALEM
“He came to his own, but his own
people did not accept him”: these words are from the prologue of John’s gospel.
Yet today’s reading from Luke’s gospel seem to be an apt example of this state
of affairs; for it speaks of both the mystery of Jesus and the incomprehension
of those closest to him. That this family journeyed to Jerusalem for the Passover
festival and that they were there for eight days is as expected (the two feasts
of Passover and Azymes had been joined together into one feast that lasted
eight days).
What is extraordinary is what follows: the young boy
decides to remain behind in the temple, apparently unconcerned about notifying
his parents who leave Jerusalem with their usual travelling companions without
first verifying that their son is among them. They are separated for three
days, a number that Luke intentionally notes. The family is finally reunited but
the three of them are still on different wavelengths: Mary’s affectionate
reproach, still raw from the anxiety of the past three days clashes with her
son’s own sincere astonishment, “Why
were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in
my Father’s house?”
The mystery of Jesus is
manifested, of course, in everyone’s astonishment and especially in that of the
doctors of the law when they hear his enlightened “understanding and his answers.” It is also made manifest in the
mention of the three days, the usual biblical duration of time for encountering
God. There are three days between the entombment of Jesus’ body and the
resurrection, that is, life’s complete victory. And finally, the mystery of
Jesus is manifested through the astonishing words spoken by this
twelve-year-old boy to his very human parents: “I must be in my Father’s house?” With these words he affirms his
identity as the Son of God; the angel Gabriel had already spoken of him as the
“Son of the Most High”, but this title specifically referred to him as the
Messiah. Now, a new stage of revelation has been reached: the title of Son of
God applied to Jesus is more than a royal title - it reveals the mystery of
Jesus’ divine sonship. No wonder that this was not immediately understood! And
there was more to come: in this episode Jesus says that he must be in his
Father’s house but later on he says: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”
Even Jesus’ parents do not grasp the meaning of his
words, and Jesus challenges them, saying, “Did
you not know…?” Believers as deeply fervent as Joseph and Mary are bewildered
by God’s mysteries. This ought to reassure us. We should not be surprised that
there is so much that we don’t understand. Have we forgotten Isaiah’s words, “For my thoughts are not your
thoughts, nor are your ways my ways—oracle of the LORD. For
as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways,
my thoughts higher than your thoughts”
(Is 55.8-9).
Today’s gospel text leads us to believe that Mary
herself does not yet grasp what is happening; however, she retains all that she
has seen and heard and searches for answers: “his mother kept all these things in her heart.” Already, when the
shepherds had come to the cave in Bethlehem we are told that: “And Mary kept all these things,
reflecting on them in her heart” (Luke 2.19). With this,
Luke offers us an example to follow: we must accept our own incomprehension,
while allowing our questions to gestate deep within ourselves. Mary’s faith
journey, just like ours, is not a bed of roses. Jesus himself, like all of us,
had to grow from childhood to adulthood. In this we are faced with the mystery
of the Incarnation: “Jesus advanced in
wisdom and age and favor before God and man.”
This means that Jesus is fully human; it also points to God’s patience as we
mature – for God a thousand years are as a day (Ps 90).
THE MYSTERY OF THE INCARNATION
The episode from today’s text takes place in the
Jerusalem temple. The temple is very important in Luke’s gospel; for Jews the
temple was the sign of God’s presence in the midst of God’s people…* For
Christians, as we know, it is Christ himself who from now on fully embodies
God’s presence, who is the temple of God. Today’s narrative takes one step
towards this revelation. Luke most certainly has in mind a prophecy from
Malachi: “And the lord whom you seek
will come suddenly to his temple; the messenger of the covenant whom you
desire— see, he is coming! says the LORD of hosts”
(Mal 3.1).
One last comment: we may be surprised by an apparent
contradiction in the text: Jesus tells his parents that he must be in his
Father’s house and then immediately returns with them to Nazareth. This means
that Jesus did not remain in a temple made of stone! Samuel (in today’s first
reading) also left the temple: although he had been consecrated to the Lord and
brought to the temple in Silo to spend the rest of his days he ended up serving
the Lord outside the temple, as a leader of his people. Perhaps there is a
lesson for us here: “I
must be in my Father’s house” means a life given to the service
of others, not necessarily within the confines of the “temple”; or put another
way, to be with the Father means to be, first and foremost, at the service of
his children.
Addendum
The beginning of Luke’s gospel is situated in the
Jerusalem temple, with Zechariah and the announcement of John the Baptist’s
birth (the name John means “God has graced”). It is also in the temple
precincts that, on the day of the Presentation of Jesus, Symeon proclaims that God’s
salvation has arrived. Moreover, Luke’ gospel ends with the disciples’ return
to the Jerusalem temple after their farewell to the resurrected Christ.
Translated
with permission by Simone Baryliuk, from: Commentaires
de Marie Noëlle Thabut, 27 decembre, 2015
